Russia has suggested that the European Space Agency (ESA) take part in the development of a new manned spaceship, which can be used for both flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and to other planets, Anatoly Perminov, chief of the Federal Space Agency (FSA), has said during an Internet briefing.

"It is a question of a promising general-purpose spaceship, the Clipper, which is being developed by the Energia space rocket corporation," Perminov explained.

The FSA chief said, "The Clipper will take the place of the world's most reliable spaceships from the Soyuz family, which get obsolete in both the duration of the use and in components. The Clipper will make it possible to deliver six people to the ISS, not 2-3, as currently is the case. This constitutes the prospect of developing new-generation spaceships, not a shuttle. The Clipper will be adapted not only for flights to the ISS but also for research into the interplanetary space, and expeditions to other planets, including Mars".

hmmm I thought it would be the russians and us doing something like that... not the russians and the europeans...

I guess it's kinda nasa's history that is to blame...
Working with europians (esa, it's not eu), is often easier compared to nasa.
Also I guess everyone knows even the russians that nasa on this moment is not the best "government organization" to work with because of their internal problems and planned changes.

I think esa will be more intrested and I think it will be hard to get nasa involved in such a project without that they will be kinda the "main leading country".. manny people in the congress would like to see a new "US" space vehicle instead of a vehicle 30% US and 70% russian or so...
And without congress... no money... no deal with the russians...

And having 2 vehicles.. RUSSIA/EU and a US one, is better compared to 1 vehicle for us all.. (if one has large problems... not all our nations would be earth limited)

And I think the US got money anough to pay it alone (or with some other partners)

And in the end.. I hope the private industry will make manny space ships that can go beyond earth's orbit.... how more teams and space ships (same with countries, that's why eu russia and US seperated is better), more chances that we'll have successes and progress.

ESA is nothing to do with EU, its a private company/consortium of mainly European aerospace firms such as EADS and I think the British firm Bae has a stake in it but I am not sure to what extent. The French are very much the driving force behind ESA so there must be government money in there somewhere too.

GET ON!
Sounds good to me.
Don't blame them for not asknig the yanks realy, didnt China ask for some joint missions and the use of the ISS but america said no to everything? sure i heard something along those lines!

so what would happen to all the development of the Phoenix shuttle by esa, a mock up scale model was flown a few months ago right?

I like the sound of it! wonder if it could be flown from europe and how many there would be? hmmm no news anywhere else though is there?

The russian invitation will be due to the russian lack of financial ressources to construct "Clipper" alone. NASA has the Space Shuttle and other new plans and couldn't be exspected to share concurrent projects whereas ESA is working on projects usable in a russian "Clipper"-project. Because of the russian financial problems they are forced to make use of ESA-project instead of competing to them.

Additionaly it may be a political thing - the Russians know of the dissatisfication ESA is feeling about the missing progress of ISS and the Russians share that dissatisfication. They consider this constellation to be a chance to increase their own influence I suppose.

I would prefer the Russians would seek cooperations with teams like those competing for the XPRIZE - especially because one of them is a russian team from Moscow: Suborbital Corporation.

To me it would not be surprising if ESA did get involved in the project. ESA has been strengthening its ties with Rosaviakosmos for some time now and there are already a lot of co-operative programmes going on between them. I'm not sure though if they did this how it would fit into the current ESA plans for new vehicles under the FLPP. The other plans might still go ahead.

I'm sorry Texan, but I don't think that a tie-up between the US and Chinese agencies is on the cards. If anything they may probably enter into more projects with Europe, ESA has been courting the Chinese in recent years.

As Ekkehard said, there may be politics in this too. The other agencies working on the ISS are very annoyed about what is happening and NASA's credibility has been seriously hit in their eyes.

The most interesting thing for me in this announcement is that these comments have come so soon after the rumours about a merger. Interesting!!!

Europe needs its own access to space, and Klipper is a helluva lot better vehicle then the Hermes would have been. Put on top of an Ariane V and they might even get to go places more interesting then International Sad Station.

I remember an article to be read in the german newspaper "Die Welt" after Dennis Tito was in space as the first space tourist or after Marc Shuttleworth's travel. In this article has been reported that the Russians were planning a new spacecraft to carry tourists to space with three persons capacity.

Is that spacecraft the Klipper? I'm going to look after the article. If I'm right they have increased the capacity or I remembered wrong.

This spacecraft hurts only one of the XPRIZE rules - it's not privately funded.

It may be a serious competitor to the XPRIZE-spacecrafts because it's orbital. But the capacity may be a disadvantage in the long run because the XPRIZE CUP includes a compettion for the maximum number of passengers carried to space in one flight.